You can’t have an active blog with Mets in the title and ignore the news that Gil Hodges is finally in the Hall of Fame. And who would want to?!
This announcement marks 10 years to the day after another head-scratching snub, Cubs rival Ron Santo, got into Cooperstown. The wait for Gil has been far longer. Hodges died 50 years ago this coming April. To some newer fans who barely remember Shea Stadium or didn’t know that the place once had colored panels on its exterior, Gil might seem like simply some old-time figure reduced to a one-off statement when answering questions about those number in the far reaches of Citi Field: “Casey Stengel was their first manager,” “Tom Seaver was their greatest pitcher,” and “Gil Hodges managed the Mets to their first world championship.” All that is true, but those names are so much more than that.
When people ask who was the team’s greatest manager, to me it seems almost as obvious as asking who was the franchise’s best pitcher. The lineup of the 1969 Mets looks like a great candidate to be shut out. In fact the ’69 Mets were shut out 14 times—twice as many times as the Cubs, who surpassed the Mets in almost every offensive category and led New York by 10 games in mid-August of ’69. Besides having a manager who relied on 25 players instead of 12, as Leo Durocher did to his detriment in Chicago, the major reason the Mets won is because they shut out opponents 28 times, the most in baseball. The most memorable was Seaver’s “Imperfect Game” against the Cubs, which went from perfect game to one-hit shutout in the blink of a Qualls. (Second and third of most impressive Mets 1969 shutouts: the magical doubleheader sweep in September at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, both won by 1-0 scores with the pitchers driving in the only runs in each.)
Gil got the most from his talented club, and then he squeezed a little more. He platooned relentlessly, he had the ultimate faith in his young pitching staff, he made erratic starter Tug McGraw into a reliever, and though he never seemed to know what to do with wild Nolan Ryan, he utilized him in crucial moments, especially during the postseason. Ryan won the pennant clincher against the Braves with seven innings in relief at Shea and put out the Orioles’ uprising (with a lot of help from Tommie Agee) in Game Three of the World Series. Stricken with a serious heart attack at the end of the 1968 season, it was no sure thing he would be able to manage at all in 1969. A heavy smoker, he quit—alas, but not for good.
His greatness as a player could have gotten him into the Hall of Fame while he was still alive, but starting with his first year of eligibility, which was, ironically, 1969, bigger names took precedence. Stan Musial and Gil’s Dodgers teammate Roy Campanella got the 75 percent of the vote needed to enter the Hall that year. Gil’s vote total doubled to 48 percent in 1970 after the Mets won the World Series, the third-highest total on the ballot after the only inductee, Lou Boudreau. (Mets broadcaster and Pirates slugger Ralph Kiner, whom Hodges passed as the NL’s most prolific right-handed hitter, was second in the balloting that year—Ralph finally made it six years later.) Gil’s total remained the same in 1971, but even his Mets first-base coach Yogi Berra, a three-time AL MVP and 10-time world champion catcher, didn’t get in—nor was anyone else voted in; though eight men, including original Mets GM George Weiss, went into the Hall through the Veterans Committee, while Satchel Paige got in via the new Negro League Committee. Berra, Early Wynn, and another Dodgers teammate, Sandy Koufax, were all voted in during the 1972 election, announced a couple of months before Hodges’s tragic death in front of his coaches (except for Berra) on a golf course in Florida. Ironically, Hodges had that Easter Sunday free to play golf because of the MLB work stoppage. He was voted in 49 years later during a lockout.
Hodges hit 60 percent of the vote in the years after his death, reaching a high of 63.4 percent in his 15th and final year on the ballot in 1983. If you go by Wins Above Replacement, a formula that can be used to measure players from different eras, Gil’s numbers were lower than players who never made the Hall, including Vada Pinson, Jimmy Wynn, Thurman Munson, and Dick Allen, who was again denied access to Cooperstown despite being one of the game’s best players during the early 1970s. But whereas Allen—and the likes of Albert Belle—were considered to have attitude problems, Gil’s mind-set was off the charts. Hodges was the team’s first base anchor and never booed at Ebbets Field—and I think we all know how New Yorkers aren’t afraid to boo—and Brooklyn fans famously prayed for him during a postseason slump (the title of a very good memoir by Tom Oliphant).
Many of Gil’s young Mets players considered him a father figure. He was a World War II Marine sergeant who led his squad through hellacious fighting in the Pacific. And he didn’t take crap. Amos Otis and Nolan Ryan were Mets Hodges wasn’t sure what to do with when they chafed at his quiet but demanding way of leading that dictated he lead and you follow. Though these are the two poster boys for worst Mets trades, it also didn’t work out for Ron Swoboda, who still regrets his impetuousness that led to his being banished to Montreal not long after his 1969 World Series glory. Those are the exceptions. The Hodges Way worked ideally for many Mets. Cleon Jones was one of his biggest supporters despite being pulled from a game mid-inning when Hodges walked out to left field and removed him after not hustling as the Mets slumped during the summer of ’69. They played about .800 baseball down the stretch after that week.
Few messed with Hodges in matters of leadership. Even buttinsky and Mets uber-villian M. Donald Grant deferred to Hodges on all matters. If Gil had lived and continued to run the Mets, maybe Grant would be forgotten instead of loathed for what happened in the wake of Gil’s death. Had he lived, maybe Hodges would have ascended to GM and named Whitey Herzog as his replacement in the dugout. No one will ever know. But what we do know is that thanks to the Golden Era ballot, Gil is finally a member of the Hall of Fame. And that is a truly wonderful thing.
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It’s been a privilege to have written about Gil Hodges and the wonderful team he led many times over the years. And with holidays coming up, a reminder to go here if you want to check out some of my books.
But it was also fun to look at the Mets from a fictional and animal perspective in Out of a Dog’s Mouth, a novel I wrote under the pseudonym McNally Berry. There are dogs named Choo Choo and Kooz, and, not surprisingly, the family we follow for 70 years is filled with Mets fans (after switching allegiance from the Brooklyn Dodgers, natch). You can find it on Amazon in paperback or e-book form here. Or get a signed copy here in time for Christmas.